Queen Margrethe of Denmark has resigned her patronage of the H.C. Andersen Children’s Book Prize in protest against the decision to have a Russian leading the competition’s jury.
Several countries have tried in vain to have Anastasia Arkhipova, the controversial competition leader, removed from her role. Now the situation has escalated following the decision of Queen Margrethe to withdraw as patron of the prize.
Ms Arkhipova is a Russian illustrator who was appointed as chairman of the jury, which will award the H.C. Andersen Prize – an award often called the Nobel Prize for Children’s Literature.
However, the question is being asked as to how a representative of Russia can present the world’s most prestigious prize for children’s books whilst the country simultaneously engaged in war with Ukraine.
This question has divided the International Council for Books for Young People which awards the Hans Christian Andersen prize every couple of years. Norway, Sweden, Finland and the Baltic countries want to remove Ms Arkhipova as leader, and this week they received the royal seal of approval from Denmark.
The Danish Royal House informed the Council that Queen Margrethe has chosen to withdraw as patron of the award. The prize has also been removed from the list of the Queen’s foreign patronages on the Royal Household’s website.
At a congress in September last year, the Russian illustrator and art professor Anastasia Arkhipova was chosen as chairman of the jury that will award the prize in 2024. Arkhipova describes the campaign against her as bullying based purely on her nationality, and distances herself from those who want to remove her.
Previous winners of prize include Astrid Lindgren, J.K. Rowling and most recently by Karl Ove Knausgaard. It is named after Hans Christian Andersen, Denmark’s most famous author of children’s books.
